


The boy with the lighthouse heart

by Etalice



Series: Drarryland 2019 [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And possibly of angst, Drarryland: A Drarry Game/Fest, First Kiss, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, an overabundance of metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 15:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etalice/pseuds/Etalice
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, Harry Potter became a tidal wave. As the ground of Hogwarts welcome them again, and as they frantically try to cover up the hole the war left in the linear course of their lives, Draco notices it.(This is a list of the things he also notices : there are three patches of moss in the schoolyard. One hundred and seven stones are missing from the walls. Eleven rooms have doors that don’t shut right. None of these things matter, but Draco notices them anyway.)Draco Malfoy counts, and lists, and categorises things. Harry Potter can't make sense of the world anymore. And then: they kiss.





	The boy with the lighthouse heart

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks goes, again, to [orpheus87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orpheous87/pseuds/orpheous87) for the flawless beta work.
> 
> Prompt : The Fates have spoken. You have drawn The Chariot card, reversed: You will write about lack of control, lack of direction, aggression. You will channel the element of water. You may read the full description of the card here for more inspiration. The powers that be sense your story will be between 334 and 948 words.

Draco categorises things in his mind.

He always has, really, it’s not a conscious decision as much as something that happened while Lucius was ignoring his son (Draco counted the floorboards in his playroom: Fourty-two. Draco divided it by two and six and seven, and everything hurt a little less). Later, when Narcissa stroked his hair softly, Draco made a mental list of all the flowers that were as beautiful as her voice (it went : lilies, peonies, orchids.)

As far as he can remember, he’s always thought of Harry as water. It helped, not thinking of the real world, when Voldemort brought death to the manor. It helped, imagining the boy as a river (ever changing, ever moving, impossible to grasp or trap or own) when Draco’s own breath grew thick in his chest. In the aftermath of the war, when Harry was all that everyone would talk about, Draco decided that he was a brook (babbling and lively and impossible to ignore). To tell the truth, Draco doesn’t remember much of that time, except the number of cracks in the tiled floor of the kitchen, and the number of threads on the sleeve of his favourite jumper, and that Harry Potter would forever be a waterfall.

He was wrong.

In the aftermath of the war, Harry Potter became a tidal wave.

As the grounds of Hogwarts welcome them again, and as they frantically try to cover up the hole the war left in the linear course of their lives, Draco notices it.

(This is a list of the things he also notices : there are three patches of moss in the schoolyard. One hundred and seven stones are missing from the walls. Eleven rooms have doors that don’t shut right. None of these things matter, but Draco notices them anyway.)

Harry’s quiet at first, the swelling waves of anger too far away from the shore to be seen. He sits alone, still and static, though his friends push plates of food his way and let their fingers ghost on his arm. Then: the waves come crashing down. Draco is carefully aligning all his ingredients on his table, organising them by size and colour and potential lethality when Harry throws his cauldron onto the floor (the liquid ripples and rushes across the floor, splashing the dry stone tiles), cheeks stained with tears and voice broken and bruised with anger. Harry’s incandescent as everyone stands very still, and Draco feels his heart light up with the need to reach out somehow (but then: the moment’s gone, and Harry’s friends gather around him, and he is ushered out of the room.)

The lighthouse in Draco’s chest does not die out.

When Harry is cold and restless like water at the very bottom of a well, the next day, Draco wraps a gold coin in soft paper covered in handwritten well-wishes and leaves it on Harry’s pillow (there are seven beds in the room, and the evening sunlight illuminates only three of them.)

And when Harry’s anger turns him into a geothermal spring, boiling and fuming and bubbling, Draco leaves three rock crystals in the pockets of his school robe while he’s at quidditch practice, because they too were once warm and liquid, and they’ve cooled down into something beautiful (still, he counts : fourteen shoes and eight socks strewn across the floor, two brooms leaning by the door. It adds up to twenty four which is divisible by two and three and four and six and eight.)

And when Harry grows too still and too quiet, with no waves at all, and when algae creeps into his airways and threatens to smother him entirely, Draco slips outside of the castle at night, and picks a single water lily bloom from the waters of the lake and leaves it outside the door to Harry’s common room in hopes he’ll realise that water creates  life, always (in the waters of the lake, were thirteen silver fish, long and straight like arrows)

Harry seems a little better after that, and in Draco’s chest, his heart gleams heavy and bright. And it would be enough for Draco because he’s always done these strange things to make the world make sense, and no one’s never noticed. But it’s not enough for Harry, it seems, for he catches Draco unaware and alone in the library and, without a word, sets on the table: a coin. Three crystals. A wilted flower.

Draco should deny his implication. Come up with a cutting remark. Feign innocence. Instead: he catalogs all the shades of green in Harry’s eyes, sorting them by hue and intensity in his mind.

And this, is the moment Harry chooses to kiss him. Draco immediately forgets the number Harry’s eyelashes or the count of his breaths

and

                  kisses

                                           back.

Kissing Harry Potter is heady like drowning, and Draco finally, finally lets go, lets himself be submerged, lets himself drift in this vast sea of quiet.

When they finally break apart, Harry whispers onto the skin of Draco’s neck that he can’t understand the world anymore, but he finds it oddly comforting that Draco is willing to fabricate sense, just for him.

Draco’s left hand has five fingers, which is divisible by nothing else than one and itself, but they interweave with Potter’s own darker fingers and the skin inside his palm is smooth and sensitive and this is when Draco realises he’s hopelessly in love. He doesn’t say it, not yet. Instead, he decides Harry is the ocean, breathtaking and endless and beautiful.

And he kisses Harry again.


End file.
